von Jacques Pinard Brown (Copyright)

He flew further than his little wings had ever flapped. They flapped until they felt they could flap no more. Flutter, flutter, flutter, flapped the wings of little Batty.

Until he flew so far that he came to where he had never been before; a completely different place. Here he glided to the ground, and found that the streets and houses were also deserted. Then he spotted an utterly peculiar bat, with a tag around his neck that said ‘Bobby’.

“Hello Bat, I’m Batty from ‘the place’, tell me, did the people come past here by any chance?” said Batty. The utterly peculiar bat nodded confirmation with his head but said nothing. His head, however, kept nodding up and down, so Batty took that for a yes. He hadn’t expected anything more from such an utterly peculiar bat, so he flew on.

Outside of town Batty came across another bat, he gave him one looked and realized this was a totally way-out bat. His hair was cut in a rooster and dyed purple. He sported an assortment of belly, nose and earrings, and was lavishly endowed with cheap tattoos. One large tattoo on his forearm read ‘Benny’.

“Hello bat, I’m Batty, can you by any chance tell me where the people might have gone?” The way-out bat replied, “I don’t know where they go, but they go ‘Ho-Ho-Ho’.” That was a great help, thought Batty to himself as he fluttered away.

Batty flew to the top of the tallest building in town, sat on the ledge, and rolled a joint. As he smoked it he pondered his predicament. When he had finished, he flew around in abstract circles, as he pondered it some more. This went on for what felt to Batty like a prolonged period of time, when the realization hit him. The people had gone back to ‘the place’, seeing as they had run out of places to go. He felt joy in his little heart at the prospect of the return trip.

He brushed his fangs and combed his hair, and took off his dirty white T-shirt that said, ‘WATCH OUT – I BITE!’. He took a clean one from his overnight bag that said, ‘BLOOD AND SMOKE.’ and put it on. Then he put the dirty shirt in the bag, along with his comb and toothbrush, zipped it up, and flew off into the everlasting darkness of space.

So sons and daughters, beware, this very night, in the dark reaches of space, a vampire bat is flying in search of the earth, in search of mankind, in search of blood.